Mother
by Higurazel
Summary: Dollshipping piece  Yami Bakura X Dark Necrofear . The mental pugatory that Bakura goes through after the duel with Yami Marik. Cue cornfields, lightning and... a penthouse suite?


Laughter, manic and animalistic churned through the aether towards Bakura's ears. Even after he had burned away, dissolved into the night air, he was still surrounded by the mocking sound of Marik's cackling. Eventually it was swallowed up by the noise of ghostly winds rushing past his head, high notes whistling through his mind as he sped downwards.

This was the sensation of dying. It felt... Familiar. Like returning to a quiet spot from childhood. Bakura felt his breath rip itself from his lungs, spilling past his lips in a wheezing inky cloud and pooling in front of him before dissipating. His chest was still, no longer compelled to move by a body's need for air. Bakura felt oddly at ease, as though this should be the true state of things, a natural way to exist. Any other thoughts were quickly dashed away as he slammed into the ground like a meteorite, throwing up a thick mist of reddish dust that hung in the air like a million tiny insects swarming about his broken form.

Bakura wasn't sure how long he stayed there, lying on his back in the dust, watching the swirling vortex that formed the sky here. It washed from red to black to purple, flickering bolts of arcane lightning in sickening colours shooting through it like diseased arteries. He lifted himself up to sit upright, closing his eyes as a warm wind drifted across his skin, wrapping itself about him and filling his nostrils with the sweet smell of putrefaction. Rotted fruits and the tang of static, a bad harvest and a building thunderstorm. He turned his head left and right, seeing the same bleak sight in both directions. A seemingly endless expanse of cornfields, each stalk blackened and twisted, bowing painfully in the hot breeze. Bakura lay in the middle of a dirt path that cut through the field, stretching off into infinity. Was this truly what had been waiting for him this whole time? It seemed laden with pathos...

Bakura dragged himself up to his feet, gazing out into the sea of blighted corn, at one point in particular. A few hundred metres from him, someone stood, a dark speck completely still against the swaying crops. Travelling across the wind was the sound of a crying baby. Hungry. The spirit of the ring reached out a hand as he started walking towards the figure, quietly delighted to once again see his own arms in front of him. If the duel with Marik had taught him anything, it was that you never truly appreciate limbs until they disappear. He pushed his way through the field, brushing aside the blighted stalks as he stepped over dry, loose earth. Within moments he realised that he wasn't the only one entering the field. To his left and right he could hear the rumble of two heavy creatures running on four legs, snapping corn beneath them as they sprinted in the same direction he was travelling. Towards the still figure.

The baby's crying turned from the wails of hunger into the full-throated screams of terror. Bakura picked up the pace, soon hurtling headlong in a mad dash to reach the figure before these unseen things did.

He failed.

With only a few feet left to go, he saw lithe black shapes leap from the cover of the corn, powerfully muscled arms and jaws closing around the figure. Bakura tried to stop suddenly when he saw the face of the being he had been running towards. As it was dragged down by the two monsters, the unmistakeable face of Dark Necrofear bored itself into Bakura's mind, the look of pleading cementing itself into his minds eye. The stop was perhaps a little too sudden and Bakura's legs smashed into one another, buckling beneath him and catapulting him forwards in an embarrassing tumble. He clenched his fists in preparation to fight the beasts that he was bound to collide with, but was greeted by no such sight. There were no predatory creatures, no Dark Necrofear... And no ground. Beneath him was a yawning hole in the earth, ringed with chipped, jagged rocks that made it look worryingly like an immense mouth. Bakura reached out in a mad grab to stop himself from plummeting into the pit, succeeding only in slicing open his palm on one of the sharp stones, warm blood spilling down his forearm as he dropped into the chasm.

Another loud thump of his body colliding with the ground and a horrifically vivid sense of disorientation. Bakura was already beginning to get sick of falling.

He lay face down, the red earth from before replaced with fine sand covering an exquisitely carved stone floor. The fact that he had not been dashed to pieces by such a collision was something that Bakura merely chalked up to the strange physics of... Whatever this place truly was. That sense of familiarity was now even stronger, a pulse in the back of his mind as he lifted himself to his feet to look around. He was in a vast stone chamber, the walls covered in hieroglyphs and pictograms of various monstrous creatures being defeated by human soldiers. He seemed to be in a strange alcove, a space that looked out onto a main chamber. A room that he recognised all too readily. The throne room and oft-time high court of Pharaoh Atem. Bakura sneered, taking a step forwards before stopping in his tracks, looking in confusion at the sight that greeted him.

At the centre of the chamber, a young woman stood hunched over, two heavily armoured guards holding her roughly by the arms. The look of disgust in their faces was clear as they kept their eyes on her. The woman wept noiselessly, tears streaming from her eyes with no aural accompaniment, like some bizarre silent movie. Two robed figures strode forwards towards the throne, each carrying a bundle in their arms. They knelt beneath a pair of burning braziers, speaking in unison to the seated Pharaoh. Again, there was no sound. Bakura ached to know what they were saying, just as he ached to rush out and enact a few millenia of pent up violence on the Pharoah...

One of the robed figures unwrapped his bundle, revealing a mason's hammer and chisel. They were standard tools, no decoration or finesse to their form. Bakura could see from his position that the chisel was drenched in thick red blood, most of it dried and staining the metal a dull brown. The man holding the tools bowed his head as his counterpart began speaking un-words. He began to unwrap his own bundle. Even with the silence, the feeling shock and horror in the chamber was obvious. Bakura only caught the tiniest glimpse of the bundle's contents before Atem presumably ordered it to be covered up once more. A shudder passed through the spirit, a nervous action he had long thought he was incapable of. The woman appeared to be screaming in despair, struggling against her guards, trying to pull herself towards the hastily covered evidence bundle.

The Pharoah raised his arm, ordering forward a pair of his guardians. The millenium council. What Bakura would call Atem's personal thugs, ready to carry out another sentence on one of Egypt's criminals. The scene that unfolded filled the spirit with nostalgia, taking him back to his former life as he watched the woman's inner darkness wrenched from her convulsing body. It pulsed and quivered in the air of the chamber, slowly taking on the form of the Dark Necrofear monster, roaring in fury. The noise was incredible, partly due to the sheer force behind it and partly because Bakura had subconciously gotten used to the silence of this strange sub-realm. Time slowed down, running like sap until it stopped completely, everyone held in place.

Everyone but Dark Necrofear.

She turned towards Bakura, setting her gleaming eyes on him instinctively. The spirit could see a hunger in those eyes, a deep need that needed to be filled. She stalked her way through the frozen scene towards him, lowering her arms to the ground as she did so. Bakura realised she was setting down her doll, her constant companion. With a sickening lurch in his non-existant stomach he made a connection. The glassy eyes, the arm hanging limply and uselessly at one side, the dashed in skull that was a cobweb of fractures... Bakura's panicked gaze swept from the doll to the covered bundle that lay frozen in time, at the tiny broken body that it contained. The blue monster was a few paces away from him now, her armour audibly clanking, a satisfied smile spreading over her thin lips. Bakura tried to take a step backwards, but found himself rooted to the spot. He too had been frozen in time but left brutally aware of what was going on around him. His eyes seemed to be the only part still capable of movement and they darted to and fro, around the advancing monster woman, trying not to look directly at her face. They quickly latched on and wouldn't let go, staring into the glinting pits of her eyes as she leaned towards him, her arms opening wide and-

Bakura woke up. Once again he found himself lying on a dusty floor, staring upwards. A mud and straw surface above greeted him and what passed for his heart here froze as he recognised each strand and curve in the ceiling.

No. Not here.

He lurched upwards suddenly, his head darting wildly from side to side, taking in every last familiar sight. The slow pulse in the back of his mind had become a pounding drum-beat against his skull, filling his brain with memories of childhood. He was overcome with images of spending carefree days with his friends and with his... With his family...

He turned on the spot, finding an square opening in the wall ahead of him. There had been a simple wooden shutter there, but it had fallen off in a recent storm. His father was going to fix it. In fact he was just fetching the nails when the rumble of approaching horses reached the village. Bakura walked to the hole, staring out into the scorched wasteland that had once been Kul Elna. Only a few feet from him, his mother stood with her arms clasped behind her back, smiling broadly, welcoming him home. Every fibre of Bakura's spirit rippled with a rush of emotions slowly seeping their way to the surface, the rumble of a full flood behind them. He let out a tortured howl, turning from the hole and striding for the door, dragging it open and stepping outside.

His feet touched down on a plush red carpet. Rather than the desert village that he had been expecting, Bakura found himself in what looked like a luxurious penthouse suite. Marble walls surrounded him, stretching up to a high ceiling decorated with golden swirls and baubles. A wide fireplace stood at one wall, a gentle crackling emerging from the burning logs within. There was another crackle to the air, that of a gramophone as it played some aged record quietly.

At the centre of the room was a single sofa, covered in thick cushions the same deep red as the carpet. Dark Necrofear sat nestled on the cushions, one arm draped over the side of a nearby cot, slowly rocking it back and forth. The faint jingling of a toy rolling about came from the cot, but Bakura could see from where he was standing that it was empty. The broken doll lay at Dark Necrofear's feet, it's eyes fixed on him, furious and judgemental.

The spirit paused for a moment, trying to sort through the turmoil of sensations and emotions that threatened to overpower him and drive him mad. He took a step forwards, noting how Dark Necrofear's head instantly snapped up, her lips spreading into that same smile as it recognised him. Bakura took the few remaining steps to the centre of the room, acting almost entirely on auto-pilot. The monster woman stood, opening her arms wide, silently imploring him for an embrace.

Bakura didn't move. Silence settled like bad news over the room. Windows against the far wall showed the same swirling red, black and purple sky from before. It churned violently, as if in sync with the spirits own state of mind.

It all clicked into place.

He took one final step forward, mere inches from Dark Necrofear. She slowly enveloped him within her lithe but powerful arms. The plates of her armour pressed against his body and Bakura lifted his own arms, wrapping them about her and pulling her tighter.

"I am not your child." He said quietly, feeling the monster tense in his embrace. For a moment he thought she would pull away, unable to understand what was going on. She was the dark side of a murderess's soul, a collection of impulses and needs. If what she wanted was her child back, and Bakura did not play along... Well, who was to say she wouldn't act in an irrational, violent way? It was Bakura's turn to tense up as for the first time he heard Dark Necrofear speak.

"I am not your mother." She whispered, her voice plunging into Bakura's soul and destroying the dam that held back the raw feelings of loss within him. He screamed in agony, burying his face against her shoulder, his grip tightening. He felt long fingers glide through his hair, gently pressing at the back of his head, patting him tenderly. His shoulders trembled as he sobbed, his whole body wracked with the sensation of unearthing thousands of years of postponed grieving. The quiet music of the gramophone stopped, and still they stood there, Bakura's tears seemingly endless.

The room was lit up a sickly green as unnatural lightning tore the sky asunder, the roar of thunder following barely a second behind. Bakura's sobs stopped. He lifted his head from Dark Necrofear's shoulder, his eyes glistening but filled with resolve. His jaw was clenched, his whole face etched through with rage and hatred. The monster woman's smile broadened when she saw the change in his expression.

"You cannot stay." She said. Her voice was edged with a very definite sense of melancholy.

"I cannot find revenge here." Bakura answered, his hands gliding up her back. "I have to leave if I want to make him him pay for his family's sins. I will exact the most wonderful vengeance on the pharaoh for you... Mother."

"And I will be with you my child..." Dark Necrofear placed a loving kiss on Bakura's forehead.

He took a step back, reaching down to pick up the broken doll. Stepping around the monster woman he marched to the window, looking out at the boiling sky with grim determination. With a scream of fury he swung the doll at the glass, shattering both into a million fragments. The noise of the storm outside was deafening and the hot winds had picked up into a gale that buffeted his hair. Bakura turned back to Dark Necrofear, nodding his head as he fell backwards, plummeting downwards once again. Another burst of lightning and crunch of thunder. Bakura craned his neck to look at the oncoming ground. Ahead of him he saw the roof of a church, sheets of rain rushing down it in the middle of a hideous storm. There was a hole in the roof, and within he could see his host. A sight for sore spiritual eyes.

Laughter had been his only companion on the way to the realm of the dead, and now it heralded his return to the world of the living. It was his own mad, triumphant howls of laughter that tore through the stormy skies as he dropped like a cursed stone. For once he wouldn't be colliding with a dusty stone floor. He'd be colliding with a warm, dependable host body. Bakura chuckled as the distance between his host and himself became nothing.

"Hello old friend..."


End file.
